Saturday, 28 July 1990

In Memory of their Feelings


'But o for the touch of a vanished hand
For the sound of a voice that is still'.

Division is the greatest fault of man. She was next to him and yet so far away, part of another world, cut off by bullet-proof glass. She saw him there and fell. She saw him smile, watched him move through the sweeter air surrounding him. She felt his warmth and sensed his mood. She heard his whisper but could not reply to his call. It was not dedicated to her.

He had caught her eye. There was something there. It wasn’t an empty socket. He saw, he understood. There was a connection made. No words could express the type of love that followed this innocent glance across a room. Each day he saw women’s faces on each wall. Never crying, never thinking, never speaking. In doubt, with silent words, he told her he loved her, begged God to grant him freedom.

She longed to hold him, feel the warmth of his body against hers, yet mankind stood between them; bullet-proof glass. He could reach out to her, but she could never reach him. Unknown and yet well known he dominated her.

There is, in all of us, a desire, a need for life and we can only live while we have the strength to go on fighting. For them it was a silent battle where they would be neither winner nor loser. If only time could stop so that their love and happiness lasted forever, so that the desire they held for living would keep them dreaming. Dreams of paradise had become reality, visions of love had come true. But we live in a changing world where we are the ones who change. That world chose to divide them, that world didn’t understand. That world had failed them in so many more ways that they’d ever failed themselves. Yesterday was their life, today was ‘in loving memory’ of things that are beautiful and never were, of things that are lovely and never happened, of things that are wonderful and never should be. Sometimes you can be on both sides of a valley. They were not so fortunate.

Through half closed eyes she saw him. In crowded streets she wanted him. When the whole world shouted ‘yes’ she heard his voice. When love made her ask questions, he was the answer. He was all of her.

When he saw her it was from a differing view. He longed to cross the path to her side, yet feared the floundering world she lived in, feared his passion, wondered whether she would respond. Uncertainty held him back. Fear of love stopped him wanting to love, but couldn’t stop his love. She was still part of his life, only a small part, but a part that he had no wish to cast off. He had the choice. She was the silent part of him.

She only fell in love.

Then the barrier came down. The glass melted, was shattered. The two worlds were joined through smoke, fire and flames. Heat matched their burning passions. Sirens clanged outside, they were deaf to outside worlds. They were one. His eyes captured a life that he longed to live where every day was profitable and mis-fortune non-existent. He dreamt of the happy days of his past, the year that he would never forget. Today may not have been a good day, tomorrow may be worse; but in his time of darkness the gold would smile through, the flaming brilliance of his earlier years when life was a long fantasy, stretching out before him into the depths of time ….

She held him close to her, trying to breathe life back into him.

And she was the one who saw it all happen, the one who saw the gold turn to fire. It might have been better if they’d never met, but their lives would still have happened, and even if they had taken a different road, they would end up in the same place, together again, eternally, to forget the past and make the golden memories once more.

‘For the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me’.

No comments:

Post a Comment